York Lin (98509216), Ciara Shih (99509215), Aiden Shih (99509106), Minni Tseng (101209038)
Program Introduction
Gossip Girls is an American teen drama series based on the books of the same name from Cecily von Zigersar. The series, created by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, originally ran on the CW for six seasons from September 19, 2007 to December 17, 2012. The series revolves around the lives of privileged young adults on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in New York City.
Character Introduction
Serena van der Woodsen: Always described as the “it” girl. She has had a scandalous past that continues to haunt her throughout the show and she is notorious for her many on-again, off-again relationships with countless male characters.
Dan Humphrey: An outsider who becomes a part of the turbulent Manhattan scene, an aspiring writer and fairly straight-arrow guy with a good heart and morals.
Blair Waldorf : The beautiful Queen Bee of Constance Billard School's social scene, as well as Serena's best friend and occasional rival.
Nate Archibald : The perfect "Golden Boy" of the Upper East Side, always being fought over by the prominent female characters, and deals with a lot of issues that compromise his "perfect" life.
Chuck Bass : He serves as the show's antihero, being a womanizer and party lover with a troubled life and past that provide a hidden vulnerable side.
Jenny Humphrey: Dan's younger sister, who desperately tries to become the next queen bee, a goal that eventually makes her realize the true values of life.
Today's Episode
Serena is back to the privilegedprep school for teens on Manhattan's Upper East Side. All the students know about this news from an all-knowing but ultra-secretive Internet Blog "Gossip Girl." No one knows who is behind this Blog, everyone in this exclusive circle gets the latest scoop through the website and the text messages.
To Blair, whose friendship with Serena has always been competitive and difficult, Serena is obviously changed. Nate, Blair's long term boyfriend, is also troubled by Serena's return. And now Dan and his freshman sister Jenny Humphrey, who comes from Brooklyn, try to fit in with the kids from the upper social class.
Queen Bee: leader in a girls group Antihero: is a leading character in a film, book or play who lacks some or all of the traditional heroic qualities, such as idealism, courage, nobility, and moral goodness Source:a person who supplies information Spot: to detect or discern, especially visually; spy It-girl: a rich, usually attractive, young woman who spends most of her time shopping and socializing. "It" means that she has "it" -- an undefined special quality that everyone is attracted to. You can use it in a sentence like: She has it. She's got it.
Quote:repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts, here: to express the doubts Mozzarella di bufala: a type of cheese Caprese salad: a simple salad which is made of sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, seasoned with salt and olive oil
BFF: it stands for Best Friends Forever
Rehab: rehabilitation, a term for the processes of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment, for on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines Clash with: to conflict with or mismatch another color.
This red carpet clashes with the purple of the drapes. This red does not clash with purple. It looks gorgeous Renovate: to restore to an earlier condition, as by repairing or remodeling Tip-off: a piece of information that you give to someone, often privately or secretly Catfight: an altercation between two women, often characterized as involving scratching, slapping, and hair-pulling. However, it doesn't need to be physical;it can also be used to describe women insulting each other verbally
Swipe: a slang term for steal Viagra: a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension Paxil: an antidepressant drug Socrates: a classical Greek Athenian philosopher
Trust fund: property, especially money and securities, held or settled in trust. This means that the money is kept and managed by another company and they release a certain percentage of the money each year. This way an irresponsible wealthy kid will have money to spend, but won't be able to lose all the money at one time. Dark thought: negative thought Witty: characterized by or having the nature of wit; funny or jocular Banter: good-humored, playful conversation Truffle:the fruiting body of a subterranean Ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus Tuber. Some of the truffle species are highly prized as a food
BYOB: it stand for "bring your own bottle", "bring your own beer", "bring your own beverage", or "bring your own booze." BYOB is often placed on an invitation to indicate that the host will not be providing alcohol and that guests are welcome to bring their own
Foot-fetish: a pronounced sexual interest in feet Nightstand: night table or bedside table, a small table or cabinet designed to stand beside a bed or elsewhere in a bedroom Lap: one circuit around a race track, here refers to the circuit around the party Top: to surpass and exceed XOXO: hugs and kisses, O=Hug X=Kiss
Phrase and Idiom
Have a thing for: to like someone or something very much Lock it down: when you find out that a guy/girl you're dating is probably into someone else, you try to "lock it down", for example, by having sex, to make sure he or she won't escape Effing: a slang term. When you say a girl is effing hot, it means that she’s very hot. Effing comes from "F-ing" which comes from "fucking" used as a word that emphasizes meaning. Effing is a more polite way to show emphasis when it would be inappropriate to say "fucking." Seal the deal/Tap that ass: here it means to have sex with someone Use up: run out of something Be entitled to: to be qualified to do something On the menu: when something is on the menu, it’s one of your options Have a heart to heart:to have a sincere and intimate talk Serve minors: sell alcohol to people who are under age Blair is throwing it: when someone throws a party, it means that the person is the host
Cultural Notes
1. Grand Central: it is a commuter railroad terminal in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Built by and named for the New York Central Railroad in the heyday of American long-distance passenger rail travel, it is the largest such facility in the world by number of platforms with 44 serving 67 tracks along them. They are on two levels, both below ground, with 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower, though the total number of tracks along platforms and in rail yards exceeds 100. It has been described as "the world's loveliest station". According to the travel magazine Travel + Leisure in its October 2011 survey, Grand Central Terminal is "the world's number six most visited tourist attraction", bringing in approximately 21,600,000 visitors annually.
2. Boarding school: The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board”. Some boarding schools also have day students who attend the institution by day and return off-campus to their families in the evenings. Many private schools in the Commonwealth of Nations are boarding schools. Boarding school pupils normally return home during the school holidays and, often, weekends, but in some cultures may spend the majority of their childhood and adolescent life away from their families. In the United States, boarding schools comprise various grades, most commonly grades seven or nine through grade twelve - the high school years.
3. Brooklyn: Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with about 2.5 million people, and the second-largest in area. On the contrary to Manhattan, Jobs in the borough have traditionally been concentrated in manufacturing.
4. Manhattan: it is the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough mostly consists of Manhattan Island, bounded by the East, Hudson and Harlem Rivers, but also includes several small adjacent islands and a small area on the mainland. Manhattan has been described as the economic and cultural center of the United States and is home to the United Nations Headquarters.[4] Wall Street in Lower Manhattan is one of the financial capitals of the world.
5. Upper East Side: The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park. In addition, The Upper East Side maintains the highest pricing per square foot in the United States.
6. Dartmouth College: The college commonly referred to as Dartmouth is a private Ivy League research university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution consists of a liberal arts college, the Geisel School of Medicine, the Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences. With an undergraduate enrollment of 4,194 and a total student enrollment of 6,144, Dartmouth is the smallest university in the Ivy League.
7. Takashi Murakami :He is a contemporary artist and designer from Japan. The most famous design of Murakami is the massive change of Louis Vuitton's monogram that he added many colours on. Takashi Murakami's work has been exhibited in prestigious museums all over the world, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and a recent solo retrospective exhibition at the Bard College Museum of Art.
8. Limoncello: It is a liqueur made from fermented lemons. Refreshing and light, it is usually enjoyed at the end of a meal: it is an incomparable digestive, and with tonic water it is a sweet, tasty refreshment. It's also great with champagne or mixed with juice as a cocktail. No matter how you have it, limoncello should always be enjoyed cold. Originally a regional product of Southern Italy, where the best lemons were and are still grown, limoncello is now a national drink and can be found in stores and restaurants all over Italy.
9. The Palace: The New York Palace is a hotel combining the historic landmark Villard Mansion with a modern 55-story tower. Located at the center of Manhattan in Midtown at the corner of 50th Street and Madison Avenue, the luxury hotel is directly across the street from St Patrick's Cathedral.
10. Lincoln Hawk: This is the name of the band of Rufus Humphrey, Dan and Jenny's father. This is the same name as a character in the Sylvester Stallone movie "Over the Top”. He’s a struggling trucker who arm wrestles on the side to make extra cash while trying to rebuild his life in the movie while Rufus tries to reconstruct and gain his new life.
Listening Activity
How did Serena deal with Blair's refusal to meet?
What did Jenny say when she gave the invitation to Serena? Why did she say so?
What can you say about the structure of a good apology?
What can you say about how Chuck attempts to influence the girls he wants to have sex with?
Discussion
Are you a gossip person? If not, what do you think of them?
Do you have any brother or sister, and how is your relationship? If you don’t, do you want to have one?
Have you ever been betrayed by your friend?
If you have sex with somebody, do you think that you should be together? Does a man have obligation to a woman if they had sex?
What to do when you are attracted to your friend's lover?
What kind of response do you expect to have when you say I love you to somebody?
What are private schools like in the video? What are private schools like in Taiwan? Have you ever studied in a private school and what’s your opinion about private school?
Will you allow your parents to make your educational choices for you?
Did you drink in high school? If you do, how much did you drink? What’s your opinion about teenager drinking?
Do you think it’s a good thing dating with different class people? Why and why not?
Gossip Girl
Check out some other notes that I made on the video:York Lin (98509216), Ciara Shih (99509215), Aiden Shih (99509106), Minni Tseng (101209038)
Program Introduction
Gossip Girls is an American teen drama series based on the books of the same name from Cecily von Zigersar. The series, created by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, originally ran on the CW for six seasons from September 19, 2007 to December 17, 2012. The series revolves around the lives of privileged young adults on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in New York City.
Character Introduction
Serena van der Woodsen: Always described as the “it” girl. She has had a scandalous past that continues to haunt her throughout the show and she is notorious for her many on-again, off-again relationships with countless male characters.
Dan Humphrey: An outsider who becomes a part of the turbulent Manhattan scene, an aspiring writer and fairly straight-arrow guy with a good heart and morals.
Blair Waldorf : The beautiful Queen Bee of Constance Billard School's social scene, as well as Serena's best friend and occasional rival.
Nate Archibald : The perfect "Golden Boy" of the Upper East Side, always being fought over by the prominent female characters, and deals with a lot of issues that compromise his "perfect" life.
Chuck Bass : He serves as the show's antihero, being a womanizer and party lover with a troubled life and past that provide a hidden vulnerable side.
Jenny Humphrey: Dan's younger sister, who desperately tries to become the next queen bee, a goal that eventually makes her realize the true values of life.
Today's Episode
Serena is back to the privileged prep school for teens on Manhattan's Upper East Side. All the students know about this news from an all-knowing but ultra-secretive Internet Blog "Gossip Girl." No one knows who is behind this Blog, everyone in this exclusive circle gets the latest scoop through the website and the text messages.
To Blair, whose friendship with Serena has always been competitive and difficult, Serena is obviously changed. Nate, Blair's long term boyfriend, is also troubled by Serena's return. And now Dan and his freshman sister Jenny Humphrey, who comes from Brooklyn, try to fit in with the kids from the upper social class.
You can watch the video here
http://www.tvids.net/watch35/Gossip-Girl/season-01-episode-01-Pilot
(make sure to change the viewing quality from 240 to 360)
For more information
IMDb:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397442/
TV.com:
http://www.tv.com/shows/gossip-girl/
Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/GossipGirl?fref=ts
Vocabulary
Queen Bee: leader in a girls group
Antihero: is a leading character in a film, book or play who lacks some or all of the traditional heroic qualities, such as idealism, courage, nobility, and moral goodness
Source:a person who supplies information
Spot: to detect or discern, especially visually; spy
It-girl: a rich, usually attractive, young woman who spends most of her time shopping and socializing. "It" means that she has "it" -- an undefined special quality that everyone is attracted to. You can use it in a sentence like: She has it. She's got it.
Quote: repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts, here: to express the doubts
Mozzarella di bufala: a type of cheese
Caprese salad: a simple salad which is made of sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, seasoned with salt and olive oil
BFF: it stands for Best Friends Forever
Rehab: rehabilitation, a term for the processes of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment, for on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines
Clash with: to conflict with or mismatch another color.
This red carpet clashes with the purple of the drapes. This red does not clash with purple. It looks gorgeous
Renovate: to restore to an earlier condition, as by repairing or remodeling
Tip-off: a piece of information that you give to someone, often privately or secretly
Catfight: an altercation between two women, often characterized as involving scratching, slapping, and hair-pulling. However, it doesn't need to be physical;it can also be used to describe women insulting each other verbally
Swipe: a slang term for steal
Viagra: a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension
Paxil: an antidepressant drug
Socrates: a classical Greek Athenian philosopher
Trust fund: property, especially money and securities, held or settled in trust. This means that the money is kept and managed by another company and they release a certain percentage of the money each year. This way an irresponsible wealthy kid will have money to spend, but won't be able to lose all the money at one time.
Dark thought: negative thought
Witty: characterized by or having the nature of wit; funny or jocular
Banter: good-humored, playful conversation
Truffle: the fruiting body of a subterranean Ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus Tuber. Some of the truffle species are highly prized as a food
BYOB: it stand for "bring your own bottle", "bring your own beer", "bring your own beverage", or "bring your own booze."
BYOB is often placed on an invitation to indicate that the host will not be providing alcohol and that guests are welcome to bring their own
Foot-fetish: a pronounced sexual interest in feet
Nightstand: night table or bedside table, a small table or cabinet designed to stand beside a bed or elsewhere in a bedroom
Lap: one circuit around a race track, here refers to the circuit around the party
Top: to surpass and exceed
XOXO: hugs and kisses,
O=Hug
X=Kiss
Phrase and Idiom
Have a thing for: to like someone or something very much
Lock it down: when you find out that a guy/girl you're dating is probably into someone else, you try to "lock it down", for example, by having sex, to make sure he or she won't escape
Effing: a slang term. When you say a girl is effing hot, it means that she’s very hot. Effing comes from "F-ing" which comes from "fucking" used as a word that emphasizes meaning. Effing is a more polite way to show emphasis when it would be inappropriate to say "fucking."
Seal the deal/Tap that ass: here it means to have sex with someone
Use up: run out of something
Be entitled to: to be qualified to do something
On the menu: when something is on the menu, it’s one of your options
Have a heart to heart:to have a sincere and intimate talk
Serve minors: sell alcohol to people who are under age
Blair is throwing it: when someone throws a party, it means that the person is the host
Cultural Notes
1. Grand Central: it is a commuter railroad terminal in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States. Built by and named for the New York Central Railroad in the heyday of American long-distance passenger rail travel, it is the largest such facility in the world by number of platforms with 44 serving 67 tracks along them. They are on two levels, both below ground, with 41 tracks on the upper level and 26 on the lower, though the total number of tracks along platforms and in rail yards exceeds 100. It has been described as "the world's loveliest station". According to the travel magazine Travel + Leisure in its October 2011 survey, Grand Central Terminal is "the world's number six most visited tourist attraction", bringing in approximately 21,600,000 visitors annually.
2. Boarding school: The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board”. Some boarding schools also have day students who attend the institution by day and return off-campus to their families in the evenings. Many private schools in the Commonwealth of Nations are boarding schools. Boarding school pupils normally return home during the school holidays and, often, weekends, but in some cultures may spend the majority of their childhood and adolescent life away from their families. In the United States, boarding schools comprise various grades, most commonly grades seven or nine through grade twelve - the high school years.
3. Brooklyn: Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with about 2.5 million people, and the second-largest in area. On the contrary to Manhattan, Jobs in the borough have traditionally been concentrated in manufacturing.
4. Manhattan: it is the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough mostly consists of Manhattan Island, bounded by the East, Hudson and Harlem Rivers, but also includes several small adjacent islands and a small area on the mainland. Manhattan has been described as the economic and cultural center of the United States and is home to the United Nations Headquarters.[4] Wall Street in Lower Manhattan is one of the financial capitals of the world.
5. Upper East Side: The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park. In addition, The Upper East Side maintains the highest pricing per square foot in the United States.
6. Dartmouth College: The college commonly referred to as Dartmouth is a private Ivy League research university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution consists of a liberal arts college, the Geisel School of Medicine, the Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences. With an undergraduate enrollment of 4,194 and a total student enrollment of 6,144, Dartmouth is the smallest university in the Ivy League.
7. Takashi Murakami :He is a contemporary artist and designer from Japan. The most famous design of Murakami is the massive change of Louis Vuitton's monogram that he added many colours on. Takashi Murakami's work has been exhibited in prestigious museums all over the world, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and a recent solo retrospective exhibition at the Bard College Museum of Art.
8. Limoncello: It is a liqueur made from fermented lemons. Refreshing and light, it is usually enjoyed at the end of a meal: it is an incomparable digestive, and with tonic water it is a sweet, tasty refreshment. It's also great with champagne or mixed with juice as a cocktail. No matter how you have it, limoncello should always be enjoyed cold. Originally a regional product of Southern Italy, where the best lemons were and are still grown, limoncello is now a national drink and can be found in stores and restaurants all over Italy.
9. The Palace: The New York Palace is a hotel combining the historic landmark Villard Mansion with a modern 55-story tower. Located at the center of Manhattan in Midtown at the corner of 50th Street and Madison Avenue, the luxury hotel is directly across the street from St Patrick's Cathedral.
10. Lincoln Hawk: This is the name of the band of Rufus Humphrey, Dan and Jenny's father. This is the same name as a character in the Sylvester Stallone movie "Over the Top”. He’s a struggling trucker who arm wrestles on the side to make extra cash while trying to rebuild his life in the movie while Rufus tries to reconstruct and gain his new life.
Listening Activity
Discussion